Baby name ‘Donald’ hit record low popularity in US

In June and July 2026, people claimed that in 2025 the baby name “Donald” hit a record low in popularity for new births in the U.S. Social media users’ posts featured the purported fact alongside images of U.S. President Donald Trump.

For example, on June 28, a user managing the anti-GOP X account @GOP__Ls posted (archived) a picture of Trump holding a baby with the caption, “Fewer than 400 babies were named Donald last year. The name just hit its lowest popularity in recorded US history.“

(@GOP__Ls accessed via X)

Others shared the claim on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived) and X (archived).

In short, this was true. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, data for the years 1900 through 2025 showed the year 2025 was the least popular year for the baby name “Donald.” The name ranked 690th in 2025, its lowest ranking on record.

The SSA results page showed “Donald” ranked as the 6th most popular baby name in 1934, its highest ranking on record. The page read:

For 2025, the number of births with name Donald is 395, which represents 0.022 percent of total male births in 2025.

The year when the name Donald was most popular is 1934. In that year, the number of births is 30408, which represents 2.863 percent of total male births in 1934.

According to the SSA, the most popular baby boy names in Trump’s birth year, 1946, featured “James” as the top choice, followed by “Robert,” “John,” “William,” “Richard,” “David,” “Michael,” “Thomas,” “Charles” and “Ronald.” “Donald” ranked 13th, just three spots behind “Ronald.”

Meme compares ‘Donald’ and ‘Adolf’ names

An apparent minority of users sharing the rumor, including in the Snopes Tips Facebook group (archived), posted a meme about former German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, reading, “Fun fact: After World War II, the number of newborns named Adolf dropped to its lowest rate in history. In other news, only 400 newborns were named Donald last year — dropping to its lowest rate in history.”

(Snopes Tips accessed via Facebook)

The SSA website appeared to only display annual data for the top 1,000 baby names for boys and girls. As such, the website’s data for “Adolf” stopped showing data for new births after 1928 — a year in which the name ranked 950th among baby boys.

FindAGrave.com, a website documenting cemetery burials, found 2,372 records for deceased people named “Adolf” who were born after 1928 and received U.S. burials. After 1945, that number dropped to around 900 records — not including U.S.-based persons named “Adolf” still alive in 2026. (Some of those individuals may have immigrated to the U.S. or changed their names after birth.)

In 2018, HuffPost.com reported about the decline of the name “Adolf,” publishing some additional data reportedly from the SSA website that did not appear in our searches in 2026. The number of baby boys named “Adolf” reportedly dropped to the teens in the 1930s, then to just five newborns in 1944 — with no more than 12 newborns receiving the name in a single year in subsequent decades.

According to the SSA website, the alternate spelling of “Adolph” last displayed in the top 1,000 baby boy names in 1970.

Snopes contacted the SSA to ask for more annual data regarding the name “Adolf” and will update this article if we receive further information.

For further reading, we previously reported about a claim in which users drew comparisons between a picture of Hitler’s promotion of Volkswagen with Trump’s support of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Tesla.